DRIVING CIRCUIT OF DISPLAY APPARATUS AND DRIVING METHOD THEREOF
A driving circuit of a display apparatus includes a decoder coupled to a plurality of scan lines of a display panel for decoding a plurality of input signals to output a plurality of scan line driving signals to thereby enable at least one scan line of the plurality of scan lines, and a plurality of control units (respectively coupled to the plurality of scan lines) for receiving an output enable signal to disable the plurality of scan lines during an interval between two scan lines being enabled.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a driving circuit of a display apparatus, and more particularly, to a scan driving circuit of a liquid crystal display (LCD) and driving method thereof.
2. Description of the Prior Art
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However, in the scan driving circuit 100, a number of level shifters 120 is equal to a number of scan lines of display apparatus. That is, if there are 128 scan lines in the display apparatus, the scan driving circuit 100 comprises at least 128 level shifters 120. In addition, because the level shifter 120 requires a larger circuit layout area, the scan driving circuit 100 therefore needs a larger circuit layout area and further results in higher manufacturing costs.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTIONIt is therefore one of an objectives of the present invention to provide a scan driving circuit having fewer level shifters and driving method thereof, to solve the above-mentioned problems.
According to one embodiment of the present invention, a driving circuit of a display apparatus comprises: a decoder, coupled to a plurality of scan lines of a display panel, for decoding a plurality of input signals to output a plurality of scan line driving signals to thereby enable at least one scan line of the plurality of scan lines; and a plurality of control units, respectively coupled to the plurality of scan lines, for receiving an output enable signal to disable the plurality of scan lines during an interval between two scan lines enabled.
According to another embodiment of the present invention, a driving method of a display apparatus comprises: decoding a plurality of input signals to output a plurality of scan line driving signals to thereby enable at least one scan line of the plurality of scan lines; receiving an output enable signal to disable the plurality of scan lines during an interval between two scan lines enabled.
According to the driving circuit of the display apparatus and the driving method disclosed by the present invention, the required level shifters of the driving circuit are significantly reduced. Therefore, the circuit layout area of the driving circuit is reduced and further lowers manufacturing costs.
These and other objectives of the present invention will no doubt become obvious to those of ordinary skill in the art after reading the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment that is illustrated in the various figures and drawings.
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To conveniently describe the present invention, the driving circuit 200 of the display apparatus only corresponds to seven scan lines G1-G7. However, after studying the following skills of the driving circuit 200, a person skilled in this art can easily apply this to a driving circuit used to drive a different number of scan lines. The operating methods of the driving circuit 200 are described as follows.
The driving circuit 200 is used to sequentially enable a plurality of scan lines to make the scan lines G1-G7 have a timing diagram of control signals shown in
Next, at time T2 shown in
Similarly, at the time T3 shown in
In addition, at the same time, only one scan line is enabled, therefore, the time each scan line is disabled is close to a frame time. That is, in the driving circuit 200, the nodes Node1-Node7 are at high voltage levels (16V) most of the time. However, because the voltage levels of the nodes Node1-Node7 may drop due to leakage current, the voltages of the scan lines G1-G7 originally at low voltage levels may increase and may result in the transistors of corresponding pixels being not completely turned off, further influencing the gray values of those pixels. Therefore, the voltage stabilizing circuit 320 (i.e., PMOS M2) of the control unit 220 shown in
It should be noted that in the driving circuit 200, the OE signal generating circuit 240 is the OR gate and outputs the OE signal according to the digital input signals D0, D1, D2. However, this is merely an embodiment of the present invention. In practice, the OE signal generating circuit 240 can be another circuit and can generate the OE signal according to other signal(s) in the driving circuit 200. In short, as long as the OE signal generating circuit 240 can generate the OE signal OE_LV shown in
In addition, in the present invention, the voltage stabilizing circuit 320 is a PMOS whose gate electrode is connected the bias voltage VBIAS. However, the voltage stabilizing circuit 320 can also be implemented by other simple methods.
In addition, in the driving circuit 200, the decoder 210 is a binary code. The decoder in the driving circuit 200 can also be a 1-to-4 decoder or another type of decoder, however.
It should be noted that in the driving circuit 200, the decoder 210 outputs a scan line driving signal having a low voltage level, and then this signal is inverted by the inverter 230 to become a signal having a high voltage level to enable the scan line. However, by appropriately modifying the driving circuit 200, the decoder can directly output a can line driving signal having a high voltage level to enable the scan line, and the driving circuit 200 can replace the inverters 230 by buffer amplifiers or even connect the scan lines to the nodes Node1-Node7.
Compared with the prior art scan driving circuit 100, taking seven scan lines as an example, the prior art scan driving circuit 100 needs at least seven level shifters. The driving circuit 200 of the present invention, however, requires only four level shifters. In addition, according the above teachings, the more scan lines there are to be driven, the more the number of level shifters in the driving circuit of the present invention can be reduced. Although the decoder 210 is shown in the driving circuit 200, the decoder 210 can be implemented by a minimum line width process and needs a very small circuit layout area. Therefore, the decoder 200 of the present invention require a smaller circuit layout area and lower manufacturing costs.
Briefly summarizing the driving circuit of the display apparatus and related driving method, in the present invention, a decoder is utilized to decode a plurality of input signals to output a plurality of scan line driving signals to thereby enable at least one scan line. A plurality of control units are utilized to a OE signal to disable all the scan lines during an interval between two scan lines enabled, where each control unit comprises a control circuit for disabling a corresponding scan line during an interval between two scan lines being enabled according to the OE signal. A voltage stabilizing circuit is utilized to maintain a voltage level of a scan line driving signal of a corresponding scan line at a predetermined value when the corresponding scan line is disabled.
Those skilled in the art will readily observe that numerous modifications and alterations of the device and method may be made while retaining the teachings of the invention.
Claims
1. A driving circuit of a display apparatus, comprising:
- a decoder, coupled to a plurality of scan lines of a display panel, for decoding a plurality of input signals to output a plurality of scan line driving signals to thereby enable at least one scan line of the plurality of scan lines; and
- a plurality of control units, respectively coupled to the plurality of scan lines, for receiving an output enable signal to disable the plurality of scan lines during an interval between two scan lines being enabled.
2. The driving circuit of the display apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:
- an output enable signal generating circuit, coupled to the plurality of control units, for generating the output enable signal according to the plurality of input signals.
3. The driving circuit of the display apparatus of claim 2, further comprising:
- a plurality of level shifters, respectively coupled to the decoder and the plurality of control units, for adjusting voltage levels of the plurality of input signals and the output enable signal.
4. The driving circuit of the display apparatus of claim 2, wherein the output enable signal generating circuit is an OR gate.
5. The driving circuit of the display apparatus of claim 1, wherein each control unit of the plurality of control units comprises:
- a control unit, for disabling a corresponding scan line during an interval between two scan lines being enabled according to the output enable signal; and
- a voltage stabilizing circuit, for maintaining a voltage level of a scan line driving signal of the corresponding scan line at a predetermined value when the corresponding scan line is disabled.
6. The driving circuit of the display apparatus of claim 1, wherein each scan line driving signal is at a first voltage level or a second voltage level, and one of the first and the second voltage levels is a high voltage level, and the other is a low voltage level, the decoder outputs a scan line driving signal having the first voltage level to enable the scan line, and the driving circuit of the display apparatus further comprises:
- a plurality of inverters, respectively coupled to the plurality of control units and the plurality of scan lines, for receiving the plurality of scan line driving signals, where an inverter of the plurality of inverters corresponding to the scan line receives the scan line driving signal having the first voltage level to output a target voltage level to enable the scan line.
7. The driving circuit of the display apparatus of claim 6, wherein the target voltage level is the second voltage level.
8. The driving circuit of the display apparatus of claim 6, wherein each control unit of the plurality of control units comprises:
- a control unit, for disabling a corresponding scan line during an interval between two scan lines being enabled according to the output enable signal; and
- a voltage stabilizing circuit, for maintaining a voltage level of a scan line driving signal of the corresponding scan line at the second voltage level when the corresponding scan line is disabled.
9. The driving circuit of the display apparatus of claim 1, further comprising:
- a plurality of level shifters, coupled to the decoder, for adjusting voltage levels of the plurality of input signals.
10. A driving method of a display apparatus, comprising:
- decoding a plurality of input signals to output a plurality of scan line driving signals to thereby enable at least one scan line of the plurality of scan lines; and
- receiving an output enable signal to disable the plurality of scan lines during an interval between two scan lines being enabled.
11. The driving method of the display apparatus of claim 10, wherein the output enable signal is generated according to the plurality of input signals.
12. The driving method of the display apparatus of claim 11, wherein voltage levels of the plurality of input signals and the output enable signal are adjusted by a level shift operation.
13. The driving method of the display apparatus of claim 11, wherein the output enable signal is generated by an OR operation.
14. The driving method of the display apparatus of claim 10, further comprising:
- when a scan line is disabled, performing a voltage stabilizing operation to a voltage level of a scan line driving signal of the scan line and maintaining the voltage level at a predetermined value.
15. The driving method of the display apparatus of claim 10, wherein each scan line driving signal is at a first voltage level or a second voltage level, and one of the first and the second voltage levels is a high voltage level, and the other is a low voltage level, the decoder outputs a scan line driving signal having the first voltage level to enable the scan line, and the driving method further comprises:
- inverting the scan line driving signal having the first voltage level to output a target voltage level to enable the scan line.
16. The driving method of the display apparatus of claim 15, wherein the target voltage level is the second voltage level.
17. The driving method of the display apparatus of claim 15, further comprising:
- when a scan line is disabled, performing a voltage stabilizing operation to a voltage level of a scan line driving signal of the scan line and maintaining the voltage level at the second voltage level.
18. The driving method of the display apparatus of claim 10, wherein voltage levels of the plurality of input signals are adjusted by a level shift operation.
Type: Application
Filed: Mar 4, 2008
Publication Date: Jun 25, 2009
Inventors: Ming-Huang Liu (Taipei Hsien), Wen-Chi Wu (Tao-Yuan City), Meng-Yong Lin (Hsinchu City), Bo-Chang Wu (Taichung County), Chi-Mo Huang (Hsin-Chu City)
Application Number: 12/042,323